


the first time (ever I saw your face)

by sara_wolfe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, First Meetings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, MIT Era, Mall Jail, Panic Attacks, Roommates, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: Five firsts in the lives of James Rhodes and Tony Stark.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, minor Carol Danvers & James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109
Collections: Rhodey_apprecationweek2020/05





	1. first meeting

**Author's Note:**

> written for day two of the Rhodey Appreciation Week. prompts: roommate, "Are you kidding me?"
> 
> title from Peter, Paul, and Mary's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Less than a week before the semester starts, Housing and Residential Services sends Jim a letter telling him that his roommate assignment has been updated. 

“Are you kidding me?” Jim grouses. He stares in growing horror at the letter as he takes in more and more details, each line worse than the last. 

His original roommate, Terry, had been exactly the kind of roommate Jim had been hoping to get. Quiet, kept to himself most of the time, distantly friendly whenever they spoke - he’d been practically perfect. He hadn’t even really shown an inclination toward making friends, which had suited Jim just fine. He’d worked hard to get into MIT; the last thing he wanted was for distractions to screw up his chances at success. 

But now Terry’s gone. Assigned to another dorm, according to the letter from Housing, a casualty of administrative reshuffling. His new roommate, the letter continues, should be arriving either today or tomorrow, just in time for the semester to start. 

Oh, and his new roommate just happens to be Tony fucking Stark.

* * *

Jim knows all about Tony fucking Stark. 

He can’t _not_ know about him; it seems like every other week, the kid’s in the news for one thing or another. Eleven years old, and he’s winning robotics competitions; twelve, and he’s a guest judge for those same competitions. Fourteen, he’s being awarded some prestigious-sounding science award Jim’s never even heard of. Fifteen, and he’s immortalized in a grainy tabloid photo getting arrested with a couple of his boarding school buddies for some stupid breaking and entering shit. (Probably the one newspaper his father hadn’t been able to buy off for him, Jim had thought, cynically.)

And at fifteen, he’s a full year younger than Jim, which makes him MIT’s youngest student and newest wunderkind. Not that Jim’s bitter, or anything. But he has worked really damn hard to get where he is right now, and while he knows that no one can take that away from him, no one can diminish everything he’s accomplished, he can’t help but feel like everything he did is for naught, when Tony fucking Stark gets to waltz onto campus just days before the semester starts, sailing on his family name and his family money, only there because his father bought his way in, and everyone coos over him like he’s the Second Coming. 

Okay, maybe Jim’s a little bitter. 

And it’s not bad enough that Tony fucking Stark is going to be on campus, and probably in his classes. No, Tony fucking Stark is his new roommate, which means that Jim is never getting away from him. And if the tabloids can be believed, Jim can kiss his beautifully-quiet dorm room goodbye; Stark’ll probably be throwing keggers every single night. Jim can already feel his GPA dropping like a rock.

This is going to be the worst year ever.

* * *

It’s half past three when Jim hears a knock on the door frame. He looks up from the textbook he’s been perusing to see a kid hovering in the doorway. The kid offers Jim a hesitant smile, brushing away a long lock of dark, shaggy hair that’s hanging in his eyes. His hair flops back into place like he hadn’t even bothered. 

“Can I help you?” Jim asks. The kid looks familiar, like Jim’s seen him somewhere before. 

“I sure hope so,” the kid says. “Are you James Rhodes?” When Jim gives an affirmative, the kid’s smile grows to a thousand watts, and he practically bounces into the room with his hand held out in greeting. “Nice to meet you! I’m Tony, I’m your roommate.”

Jim blinks, absolutely sure that he’s misheard. Because he knows what Tony Stark looks like, and Tony Stark is slick and polished, practically a miniature copy of his father in the newspaper and magazine photos they’re pictured in. There’s no way that Tony Stark is this scruffy, dirt-smudged, tiny kid in front of him, wearing tattered, sun-bleached jeans and a faded band tee-shirt dotted with dozens of tiny holes. 

“No way,” he says, without thinking about it, and Stark’s eyebrows knit together as he frowns, hesitantly pulling his hand away. 

“I mean, I’ve got the letter from Housing and everything,” he says, pulling a creased piece of paper out of his back pocket. “Am I in the wrong dorm? Is there another James Rhodes on campus?”

“No, I mean, there’s no way that you’re really Tony Stark,” Jim corrects himself. Not that that sounds any better, but Stark only looks amused by his verbal faux pas. 

“Honestly, it would make my life so much easier if I wasn’t,” he quips, beaming grin back on his face. “So, I am in the right spot?” When Jim can only nod, Stark throws his housing letter on the empty bed and turns around to disappear back into the hallway. “Be right back!” floats back to him from down the hall.

As promised, Stark’s back in a few minutes, hauling a suitcase that’s almost as big as he is by one hand, with a heavy-looking backpack hanging from his shoulders and a battered box held in a precarious grip in his free hand. He’s trailed by an older man in a suit who’s definitely not Howard Stark - this time, Jim’s positive. The man’s hands are empty, and he keeps shooting the box in Stark’s hand a pointed look. 

“I’m fine, Jarvis,” Stark says, even as he loses his balance and the box tumbles out of his hand. Jim dives off his bed, his quick reflexes the only thing saving the box from crashing to the floor, and Stark has the grace to look sheepish. “Whoops.”

“Whoops, indeed,” Jarvis says, dryly. “If you’d let me carry something-”

“Nah.” Stark grins up at him as he flops down on his bed. “Besides, I didn’t ask you to come with me just so you could carry things for me. I just figured that someone should be here who was actually gonna miss me.”

“Your parents-”

“Are the same people who shunted me off to boarding school when I was seven and never even visited,” Stark interrupts him. “You’ve raised me more than they have - well, you and Aunt Peggy - and she said she’s stopping by next weekend. Mom and Dad just said they’ll see me at Christmas - unless they decide to go out of the country, or something.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jarvis sighs.

“I _know_ I’m right,” Stark corrects him, smugly. “Even James thinks I’m right, don’t you?” He tips his head backward over the edge of his bed, aiming that thousand-watt grin at Jim. 

Jim’s floored. For one thing, he’d thought they’d forgotten he was there while they were arguing. For another, he can’t imagine his parents not showing up to see him off to college. When he’d moved into the dorms a month ago, his parents, his sisters, and half a dozen cousins had all come to help him move in and get settled. They’d been big, and loud, and fun.

But Stark-

Stark’s here with only one person - and someone who, from the sound of it, works for the Stark family. His own parents couldn’t bother taking the time to come with him to college. 

“Your parents didn’t want to come with you?” he asks, dumbfounded. 

“Not particularly,” Stark says, an airy tone in his voice. “But it’s fine, really. I’ve got Jarvis. Who else do I need?”

But Jim is watching him, and there’s something in his eyes that doesn’t match his nonchalant words, doesn’t fit the playboy attitude Jim had been expecting. And he’s starting to wonder if he misjudged his new roommate.


	2. first kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: Overprotective, Drama, “I dare you”

Tony’s got a reputation, everyone knows that. What not a lot of people don’t know, is that that reputation is completely, utterly false. And by not a lot of other people, Tony means Rhodey. Rhodey’s pretty much the only person Tony’s met at MIT who’s willing to look past the tabloid rumors and see him for who he really is, and Tony loves him for it. 

Too bad he’ll never have the courage to actually tell him that.

Not that he hasn’t tried. He’s made Rhodey things, bought him pretty much everything that caught his eye - hell, he even buys Rhodey that overly-sweet crap that doesn’t even bear a passing resemblance to coffee but is the only thing that wakes him up every morning. Tony’s tried everything he can think of to tell Rhodey how he feels. 

Everything except actually saying the words, of course. He can’t - he can’t do that. That would be crazy. 

So, clearly he’s doomed to love Rhodey from afar, to pine after him for the rest of their days like some kind of lovesick maiden. Or until the rest of their floor decides to host an end-of-year party and destroy a perfectly good bout of pining with a drunken game of Truth or Dare. Whichever comes first. 

Tony’s not even sure how he got roped into this. He’s been to his share of parties, of course (more than his share, if the tabloids are to be believed), and he’s not some innocent kid. But at the same time, he’d kinda been hoping to leave the party boy reputation behind once he got to MIT. He’d been hoping to find a more sedate, intellectual group of people, people who didn’t look at him and only see a good time. Instead, he just gets more of the same old. 

Including the usual crop of grabby creeps who feel entitled to Tony’s time, and Tony’s space, and Tony’s body. He’s already had to ward off two of them tonight, and he’s in the process of dodging a third, weaving in and around people all over the room but not keeping track of where he actually is. It’s the only explanation for how he ended up in the far corner, with a beer shoved in his hand and a demand of “Truth or Dare?” shoved in his face. 

“Um - dare,” he says, without thinking about it, because most of his attention is focused on trying to find his would-be stalker in the crush of people surrounding them. 

“Find someone at the party and kiss them. I dare you.”

That brings all of Tony’s attention back to the group of people looking expectantly at him. He knows what they’re waiting for. They’re waiting for Tony Stark, teenage playboy - too bad all they’ve got is Tony Stark, sudden walking anxiety attack. 

Because when Tony says that his playboy reputation is completely fabricated by the press, he means it. The press may have him dating a new person every week, but the truth is he’s never had a relationship before. He’s never even kissed anyone. 

And now he’s supposed to have his first kiss in front of a bunch of people he barely knows. 

He doesn’t have to do it, he knows that. No one’s going to force him to kiss someone. He could get up right now, and he could leave, and the worst that would happen is that people talk shit about him for a few weeks. He’s certainly lived through worse than a few nasty comments behind his back because people don’t have the courage to say those things to his face. 

And he almost does exactly that. He has every intention of getting the hell out of there and holing up in the peace of his dorm room for the rest of the night. It’s the smart thing to do.

“Pay up, Shelly, I told you he wouldn’t do it. No one here’s good enough for the great Tony Stark.”

Then again, when has Tony ever done the smart thing?

“Kiss anyone at the party?” he asks, turning and glaring at the asshole placing bets on him. “Absolutely anyone?”

“Anyone,” Asshole says, a smug grin on his face, like he thinks Tony’s going to back out. 

But Tony’s never backed down from a challenge, and he’s not about to start now. He’s half-tempted to just kiss Asshole and get it over with; hey, the guy did say anyone. But, he’s also been slamming Jaeger shots like water all night, and doing god only knows what else, and Tony’s drunk enough, he doesn’t need to add a contact high from Asshole on top of it. 

He turns back to scan the crowd, hoping to spot someone who wouldn’t mind him coming up and kissing them on the cheek - no one ever specified lips, so cheeks are fair game - when a heavy hand falls on his shoulder. He startles as the hand tightens painfully, looking up to see his stalker from earlier looming over him, a leering grin on his face. 

“How about a kiss for me?” he says, and Tony’s stomach lurches with panic. 

He wants to say no, wants to run, but every muscle is suddenly frozen with fear. The guy is so much bigger than he was earlier, and Tony’s suddenly, blindly terrified that, this time, he’s not going to get away with just a hand groping at his ass. 

“How about you move that hand before I break it for you?” 

Tony practically sags in relief as Rhodey, his knight in shining armor, comes up from out of nowhere to loom over the guy like a giant. Rhodey’s actually not that much taller than the guy, but the sheer fury radiating from him makes him seem immense. There’s a stormy look on his face that promises a world of hurt for anyone stupid enough to cross him right now. 

His stalker is downright terrified, if the look on his face is anything to go by. He slowly, carefully takes his hand off Tony’s shoulder, backing away until he’s swallowed up by the crowd. The rest of the Truth or Dare group scatters, too, smart enough to know that they should be far, far away from Tony and Rhodey. 

Tony offers up Rhodey a weak grin. “Hey, Honeybear. Some party, huh?”

“I think I’ve had more than enough for one night,” Rhodey says. _’You, too,’_ is unspoken, but Tony agrees. 

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he declares, hooking his arm around Rhodey’s and aiming for the general direction of the door. 

With Rhodey beside him still seething with silent rage, they make it to the door in no time, the crowd parting around them like an icebreaker boat plowing through icebergs in the Arctic. And once out of the room, Tony’s stress level drops by about a thousand percent. He’s perfectly happy to trail Rhodey back up to their room in silence, flopping down on his bed with a relieved sigh.

“No more parties,” he declares, his voice muffled by his pillow. “Other people are just way too-” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, but luckily Rhodey knows him well enough to know what he means. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, sitting down beside Tony on his bed. 

He shifts, and Tony can sense his hand hovering in the air over his back. Tony sighs and reaches awkwardly behind him to pull Rhodey’s hand the rest of the way down; just because he didn’t want some stranger fondling him doesn’t mean that he wants Rhodey to start being afraid to touch him. Not his Rhodey. But Rhodey gets this message too, and starts rubbing small circles over Tony’s spine, making Tony relax even further into his bed. A combination of too many all-nighters and too much alcohol has made him suddenly very sleepy.

“Thanks for coming after me,” he says, pillowing his head on his arms and turning to look at Rhodey. “I think I could have handled myself, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

“Always,” Rhodey promises, giving Tony’s shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze before returning to slow circles, again. “What were you doing, anyway?”

Tony snorts out a tired laugh. “Would you believe Truth or Dare?”

There’s a pause, and then, “What’d you pick?”

“I got dared to kiss someone at the party,” Tony tells him. “Obviously that didn’t happen, but maybe thats a good thing. There wasn’t anyone there I wanted to kiss anyway. ‘Cept for you, I mean.”

He doesn’t mean to let that last part slip out, but it does, the words hanging there between them, the sudden silence so thick he could cut it with a knife. Tony’s wracking his brain, trying to figure out how to take it all back, make it seem like a drunken ramble he doesn’t really mean.

“You could have. Kissed me, I mean.” Rhodey’s very carefully not looking down at Tony, spots of color lighting up his cheeks. “You still could, if you wanted to.”

Tony tries to give him an out. “It’s just a game of Truth or Dare. You don’t have to-”

“I want to,” Rhodey interrupts him. “And not because of some game.”

But Tony has to be sure, has to be completely, absolutely sure. He can’t afford to misunderstand, to mess this up. “You really want to kiss me?” His voice comes out a hell of a lot smaller and more vulnerable than he’d intended. 

Rhodey looks down at him, a sudden fierce light filling his eyes. “I dare you,” he says. “I dare you to kiss me.”

And really, how can Tony back down from a challenge like that?


	3. first fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Rhodey the Diplomat Day

“You know,” Carol says, nonchalantly, as she strolls into the tiny office, “when I got a call saying that I needed to bail someone out of mall jail - a thing that I did not know actually existed, by the way - I would have laid good money on having to bail out your better half.”

Rhodes at least has the good grace to look sheepish. “Thank you, Carol.”

“Mall jail,” Carol repeats, because she can’t emphasize this enough. “I’m bailing you out of mall jail.”

“And I’m forever grateful,” Rhodes says, earning himself an eye roll. “Now, are you going to get me out of here?”

“That depends,” Carol says. “Is mall security calling the real cops? Am I going to have to bail you out of real jail, too?” She shoots the bored-looking security officer an inquisitive look when Rhodes’ only answer is a shrug.

“Store says they’re not pressing charges,” comes the answer.

“Yeah, that’s real magnanimous of them,” Rhodes grouses, “considering that one of their employees was caught sexually harassing a teenager.”

“Which I’m sure the store will promptly address,” the security guard says, although his tone very clearly indicates that he thinks otherwise. 

Carol’s not too worried about what the store could do to the employee in question; it’ll be nothing compared to the legal hellfire coming their way when Howard Stark finds out what happened to his son. She’s half-tempted to sell tickets, pass out popcorn, and watching the ensuing show. 

“C’mon, Rhodes,” she says, instead. To the security guard, she adds, “Is there actually a bail that I have to pay, or-”

“Nah,” the security guard replies. “We just needed a responsible party to come pick him up, being a minor, and all.”

Carol bites back a laugh at the description of her as a ‘responsible party’. And having been eighteen for only a whopping two days, she’s barely done with being a minor, herself. But she figures that’s why Rhodes called her in the first place; she’s the only technically legal adult he knows (and that means he won’t have to call and face his mother). 

“Thanks,” she tells the guard, and then she and Rhodes hightail it out of the office. They’re at least three storefronts away before she turns to Rhodes with an incredulous, “Did you really scare that guy so badly that he passed out?”

Rhodes looks like he’s fighting back a grin. “I didn’t lay a hand on him,” he tells her. “I simply explained a few things to him, and how he chose to take that information was up to him.”

“And here everyone at school is convinced that you’re some kind of diplomat with the patience of a saint,” Carol teases him. 

“I was diplomatic!” Rhodes protests. “I very diplomatically told him what could happen if he chose to put his hands on Tony, again.”

“And then he passed out,” Carol finishes, grinning.

“And then he passed out.” 

They’ve reached the food court by now, and Rhodes waves at Tony, who’s sitting by himself near the pretzel place, with a soda and a hot dog of questionable origin. Tony gives a half-hearted wave back. “Tony wasn’t very happy with me, though. Accused me of behaving like an overprotective boyfriend, and insisted that he didn’t need me to protect his honor.”

“You can be a bit overprotective,” Carol agrees, cheerfully. “And, I’ve known Tony since we were kids; trust me, by now he’s more than capable of protecting himself.”

“Just because he can doesn’t mean he should have to! Maybe-” Rhodes takes a deep breath, his voice growing quieter. “Maybe I like protecting him.”

“You’re right.” Rhodes looks surprised by Carol agreeing with him. “Now, go over there, apologize to Tony for being overprotective and getting yourself arrested by mall security, and then tell him what you just told me.”

“You think that’ll work?” Rhodes asks, glancing over at Tony. 

“I think you have to give it a shot,” Carol says.

Rhodes needs no more urging, weaving his way around the tables to where Tony’s sitting. He drops down into the seat across from him, leaning close as he talks quietly to Tony. Carol can’t hear what they’re saying, not from so far away, but she can clearly see the way Rhodes’ face lights up when Tony laughs at something he says, reaches out and twines their fingers together. 

She figures that’s her cue to leave them to be mushy in private. She’ll call Tony later and tease him mercilessly - it’s her right as his oldest friend, after all.


	4. first flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: Engineer, Yearning, “Stop that.”

For as long as he can remember, Jim has longed to fly. Yearned after the birds even as he was forever stuck on the ground. He used to pretend he had wings, pretend he had superpowers, pretend something, anything that would let him take off into the clouds and leave the earth behind. But like all childhood fantasies, the dream faded as he got older. 

Or so he thought…

“You want to build a _what_?”

Tony grins at Jim over his third coffee of the morning, already vibrating from way, way too much caffeine. “A flying suit.”

“Tones, I think that’s already a thing,” Jim starts, but Tony’s shaking his head emphatically. 

“Not a flight suit,” he corrects Jim. “A flying suit. As in, you step inside and it lets you fly. Without a plane,” he adds, like he thought Jim didn’t get it. 

“So like a jetpack?” Jim hazards a guess.

Tony rolls his eyes. “So much cooler than a jetpack,” he scoffs. “Look, you said you wanted to get a good grade on the final project in Engineering, right?”

“Yeah,” Jim replies, “but I assumed we’d have to do it while obeying the laws of physics.”

Tony flaps his hand, like the idea of gravity is one that he can just swat away like a fly. “We won’t be breaking the laws of physics,” he says. “Just bending a couple of them.” He pauses, thinking. “Maybe bending them a lot.”

“Theorhetically, though,” Jim says. 

The way Tony’s grin gets bigger isn’t at all reassuring. “Theoretically, yeah,” he agrees. “Totally theoretical.”

* * *

Jim stares down at the plans they spent the last several weeks refining. “Holy shit.”

“Right?” Tony groans. He’s face-down on Jim’s bed, because his is covered in all their blueprints. “I know I said that we could do this, but I still can’t believe we figured out a way to make this actually work.”

“Theoretically,” Jim feels obligated to point out, because that’s been his watchword ever since they started, every time the gleam in Tony’s eyes got a little too maniacal, a little too Bond villain. 

(Jim’s pretty sure that he’s the only thing standing between Tony and total world domination and he takes his job very seriously.)

“Theoretically, right.” Tony sounds absolutely exhausted, about to fall asleep any second now. Jim almost thinks he has fallen asleep when, “But, I mean, what if we-”

“No, stop that,” Jim interrupts him. “You promised no breaking the laws of physics.”

“Not breaking,” Tony protested. “Just bending. And, besides, we might get the thing built and it might not even fly.”

“Right,” Jim says.

Tony turns his head and grins at him, the kind of smile that has always led to trouble in the past. “But wouldn’t it be awesome if it did?”

* * *

The suit flies.

Well, flies is a strong word. Hovers is a more accurate description. It sputters, and it chokes, and it jerks a whopping six inches into the air, holding Jim up for fifteen exhilarating seconds. 

But it’s the fifteen most exciting seconds of his entire life. 

_(Two decades later, he takes his first steps in a gleaming metal suit, Tony pacing him in red and gold. Together they step up on the rooftop edge. Jim takes a deep breath, and steps off the edge._

_He flies.)_


	5. first day of the rest of their lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Tony perspective

Tony’s the luckiest guy in the universe. And given how much of it he’s seen over the years, he can say that with confidence. He’s the luckiest guy in the universe because he’s got Rhodey in his life. Because Rhodey loves him. Because Rhodey wants to marry him.

So then why the hell is he hiding in a closet, spots dancing in his eyes and lungs that refuse to fill all the way with oxygen?

The ultimate irony here is that, normally, Rhodey would be the first person he called when he found himself having a panic attack. Turns out that’s not really an option in this case. So instead Tony’s hiding away in a closet, curled in on himself as he struggles to pull himself together. It’s harder than he remembers it being, trying to remember how to regulate his breathing, trying to get his frantically-whirling mind to focus on something, anything other than what’s causing the panic attack. 

Tony has his face buried in his arms, and therefore he hears, but doesn’t see the door opening; the thought of being seen like this, vulnerable and laid raw, makes his anxiety even worse. He hopes whoever’s there is enjoying his utter humiliation.

“Tones?”

Rhodey’s voice is gentle, concerned, and Tony groans softly because of course. Of all the people to find him right now, of course it would be the one person Tony wants to not see right now. Because this is Rhodey’s day too, and he’s been so happy, and Tony wants him to stay that way. Doesn’t want Rhodey’s perfect day ruined by his stupid, broken brain.

When he realizes, suddenly, that Rhodey’s been suspiciously silent for a while, Tony lifts his head enough to see Rhodey sitting on the floor beside him, close enough that he’s almost, but not quite, touching Tony. He’s watching Tony with a fond look in his eyes, and he smiles when he sees Tony watching him back. 

“Hey,” he says, and now he does lean into Tony, a quick shoulder bump. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi,” Tony echoes. “Funny seeing you here.” He tries for a joke but it falls painfully flat. 

“Well, you know, my husband’s here, so I figured I should be too,” Rhodey tells him. 

Tony’s heart gives a wild leap. “Not your husband yet,” he protests, weakly. “We still have a whole ceremony to get through, first.” He winces as soon as the words leave his mouth; that’s not how he meant to say it, he hadn’t meant to sound like he isn’t happy to marry Rhodey, because he is, even if the thought of standing up in front of all those people makes him break out in a cold sweat. 

“We don’t have to do the ceremony,” Rhodey says. 

For a second Tony forgets how to breathe. Is this just too much for Rhodey, has he finally driven him away with all his issues, his neuroses- 

“-Tones, come back to me, sweetheart. Breathe with me, okay? Just breathe.” Rhodey has an arm around Tony’s shoulders, holding him in a careful embrace. He’s holding one of Tony’s hands with his free hand, tangling their fingers together. Tony can feel himself calming down as he listens to Rhodey’s soothing voice. “We’re still getting married; that’s not what I meant, I’m sorry.”

“What did you mean?” Tony asks, feeling suddenly very tired as the adrenaline spike of the panic attack wears off. 

“I meant that we could elope,” Rhodey tells him. “Go find the minister and have it just be the two of us. And Pepper and Happy for witnesses.”

“Your mom’ll be mad at us,” Tony protests, weakly. 

“It’s not her wedding,” Rhodey reminds him. “It’s ours, and it’s supposed to make us - both of us - feel good, and if the thought of having a big ceremony is giving you a panic attack, then clearly it’s not going to work for us. So we’ll change it.”

“But we’re supposed to be getting married in less than an hour,” Tony insists. “Everyone’s already here.”

“So?” Rhodey sounds like he doesn’t care about that in the slightest. “They’re our friends and our family. Everyone will understand when we tell them we’re just going straight into the reception. And if they don’t, screw ‘em. We don’t need them.”

Tony lets out a wet chuckle. “Bruce did say that if anyone tried protesting during the ceremony, he was gonna let Hulk deal with them.”

“See?” Rhodey says. “The people who matter - really, really matter - they love us and they’ll support however we decide to get married.”

“You don’t mind eloping?” Tony asks, hesitantly. His earlier panic is almost completely gone, now, but there’s still a lingering thread of doubt. He wants to do whatever he can to make that doubt go away. 

“I get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend,” Rhodey replies, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of Tony’s head. “I don’t care if we say our vows while we’re sitting in this damn closet. That’s not what’s important to me. _You_ are what’s important to me.” A devious grin splits his face. “Besides,” he adds, looking like he’s barely holding back giggles, “why put ourselves through the stress of an entire wedding ceremony when we can skip straight to the reception and get to watch Steve try to dance?”

“Can we get the DJ to play the Chicken Dance?” Tony asks, feeling an answering grin creep over his own face. 

“And the Macarena,” Rhodey tells him. “And the Electric Slide, and the-”


End file.
